The Impossible Cube

Just the memory of that horrible, enticing number and the brain-bending sound that went with it made him shudder. He nodded.

“I shouldn’t be so far along,” Gavin said quietly.

Dr. Clef shrugged. “There is a range. Some clockworkers last only a few months, others last for two or three years. Edwina’s version of the plague was experimental, so who knows what it was like? You shouldn’t have become a clockworker, but you did. You should have shown no symptoms for several weeks, but you have. Losing yourself and talking about what you see is a sign of the final phase, where I am. You have about three months left. Four months if you are lucky. You will be a raving lunatic by the time we reach Peking, and then Alice will still have to find a Chinese clockworker who can cure you, and that assumes such a clockworker even exists. So you will die, my boy. But don’t worry.” He clapped Gavin on the shoulder. “They say once we clockworkers go completely mad, we do not even know what is happening, and we enjoy it. We can go mad together, yes?”

“Why did you bring him with you?” Feng asked.

“He jumped on board the ship while we were running away from the Third Ward headquarters,” Alice said dully. “Perhaps I should have kicked him off.”

“No.” Gavin straightened. “I’m not going to give in to this. We’ll find a way to get to Peking, and we’ll find a Chinese clockworker—”

“Dragon Man,” Feng interrupted. “We call them Dragon Men.”

“Dragon Man,” Gavin continued, “who has a cure. If we can’t find time, we’ll make time.”

An odd look came over Dr. Clef’s bulldog face. “Make time.”

“But we do have a more powerful problem.” Feng moved the Lady’s helm to adjust for a current. “This ship is very easy to see. Many airships fly, but none of them glow blue.”

“She’s very beautiful,” Gavin said, feeling defensive. The motor gave a pleased-sounding hiccup and went back to its normal quiet murmur.

“True. But beauty has its price,” Feng said. “Hers is that she attracts attention. Also, if Third Ward agents are spreading word and money to look for us, we have more trouble. How do they do it so quickly?”

“Several clockworkers in England and in Europe invented wireless communication devices,” Gavin said. “You can send messages at the speed of light to any other wireless device that listens to the same frequency. They’re better than a telegraph because you don’t need to raise poles or string wires.”

“We can’t outrun such a message,” Feng pointed out. “As it is, we lost three days when you were captured. I imagine that was what your Lieutenant Phipps wanted—to catch us up. It is fortunate she seems to have no airship.”

“Yeah. We’ll have to think of some way to hide better. I just wish we had more time.”

“You said that.” Alice set her cup down with a clink of metal on china and came around behind his chair to put her arms around his neck. The iron gauntlet was chilly. “And you’re right, darling. We’ll find a way. We’ll find time.”

Her touch made him feel better, despite the spider. Even though he was barely nineteen and she was twenty- three, he felt no difference in their ages. Alice had been initially put off by it. The gap had been one of the reasons she had resisted admitting she loved him.

Gavin touched Alice’s hand, letting himself drink in her steady presence. And she was so beautiful. Her deep brown eyes set off her honey-brown hair, and her triangle face and little nose and rounded curves all came together like the parts of an intricate fugue, compelling and hypnotic. He still found it hard to believe she was with him—and that it had taken her so long to break society’s rules and leave her horrible fiance. She leaned down. Her scent wafted over him, and he kissed her softly in the free and open sky. The kiss intensified, and a thrill went through him. He could do this. He could conquer the whole damned world, as long as Alice Michaels stood beside him.

“Very sweet,” Feng said, breaking the moment. “But I have no idea where I am going.”

They broke away and Alice coughed, a bit flushed. “I’d help, but I never learned how to read a navigation chart.”

“Right.” Gavin got up and took the charts away from Dr. Clef, who was now staring into the distance.

“My Impossible Cube had time,” he muttered. “All of it. At once. But you destroyed it, my boy. My lovely, lovely Impossible Cube.”

“Not this again.” Alice sighed. “Click!”

Click jumped down from his vantage point on the gunwale and strolled over to rub against Dr. Clef’s shins. A mechanical purr drifted across the deck. Dr. Clef glanced down.

“Ah, you send me the clicky kitty as a distraction. It will not work. I am so very forlorn.” Still, he picked the cat up and stroked the metal ears. “It won’t work at all, will it, clicky kitty? It will not. It will not.”

“Germans are so good at despondent,” Gavin observed. He pored over the charts. “If we keep our current course, we’ll reach Luxembourg by tomorrow. I know the place—it gets a lot of airship traffic, and the Juniper stopped there several times.”

“Do you think the other airships will give us camouflage?” Alice asked.

“Honestly? No.” Gavin gestured at the softly glowing envelope. “She stands out, even among airships, and the envelope isn’t big enough to lift her without turning on the generator.”

“Then why did you build your ship this way?” Feng asked.

“You’re such a clicky kitty,” Dr. Clef cooed. “You are.”

Gavin’s stomach turned over. “Because I could. You don’t think about consequences when you’re in a… a clockwork fugue. You just build. I didn’t even know I was a clockworker when I built the Lady. I thought I just had insomnia.”